Month: August 2014

Catholics And Hobby Lobby

The defense of religious freedom by the Catholic hierarchy is not exactly a universal view among the people the hierarchy are alleged to represent, according to the latest Kaiser poll. Catholics are split down the middle on it – 49 – 47 percent. Black and Hispanic Protestants are opposed to the ruling. It looks, in fact, as if it really has little to do with religious liberty and might just be yet another issue where partisan polarization explains it as well as anything else. And look again at the generation gap. One gets the feeling that the current court is desperately trying to shift things firmly to the right before time takes its inevitable revenge.

The Tallest Slum On Earth, Ctd

Last week, the Venezuelan government began removing hundreds of squatters occupying an unfinished 52-story skyscraper in downtown Caracas. Juan Nagel considers the significance of the move:

Press reports suggest the eviction was done at the behest of the Chinese. Apparently, the VENEZUELA-HOUSING-POVERTY-EVICTION-TOWER OF DAVIDbuilding was being eyed as a future headquarters for the Bank of China, and the Venezuelan government is deeply beholden to Chinese interests, particularly in light of generous loans flowing from Beijing to Caracas. If this is true, one has to wonder why the Chinese picked that tower in particular as headquarters for its many Venezuelan interests. Many office buildings in Venezuela have plenty of room. Companies are leaving the country thanks to severe currency restrictions and a deteriorating business climate, and supply is probably outstripping demand.

The answer is in the symbolism. The Tower [of David] lies at the heart of Caracas’s banking district, and as such it was an eyesore, a blatant reminder of the failed promises of the Bolivarian revolution. The Chinese probably viewed this as unacceptable, and they may have wanted to test the government’s resolve in solving politically sensitive problems such as evicting thousands of squatters — many of them chavista supporters – from the middle of the city. It remains to be seen whether or not they will succeed – so far, only 25 percent of the tower’s inhabitants have left the building.

Previous Dish on the Tower of David here. Photo by Leo Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images.

The Formerly Autistic

Ruth Padawer looks at what we know about them:

The research by [clinical neuropsychologist Deborah] Fein and [researcher Catherine] Lord doesn’t try to determine what causes autism or what exactly makes it go away — only that it sometimes disappears. There do, however, seem to be some clues, like the role of I.Q.:

The children in Lord’s study who had a nonverbal I.Q. of less than 70 at age 2 all remained autistic. But among those with a nonverbal I.Q. of at least 70, one-quarter eventually became nonautistic, even though their symptoms at diagnosis were as severe as those of children with a comparable I.Q. who remained autistic (Fein’s study, by design, included only people with at least an average I.Q.) Other research has shown that autistic children with better motor skills, better receptive language skills and more willingness to imitate others also tend to progress more swiftly, even if they don’t stop being autistic. So do children who make striking improvements early on, especially in the first year of treatment — perhaps a sign that something about their brains or their kind of autism enables them to learn more readily. Researchers also say that parental involvement — acting as a child’s advocate, pushing for services, working with the child at home — seems to correlate with more improvements in symptoms. Financial resources, no doubt, help too.

For now, though, the findings are simply hints. “I’ve been studying autistic kids for 40 years,” Fein says, “and I’m pretty good at what I do. But I can’t predict who is going to get better and who’s not based on what they look like when I first see them. In fact, I not only can’t predict who is going to turn out with optimal outcome, but I can’t even predict who will have high-functioning autism and who will be low-functioning. There’s so much we still don’t understand.”

Dick Morris Watch

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A reader sounds the alarm:

The Dish’s favorite prognosticator and the namesake of the Dick Morris Award is now going on the road and lecture on financial planning and “market predictions”:

According to a July 30 press release, Morris is working with Retirement Media Inc. “to educate seasoned investors on how to protect their savings with safe alternatives outside of the stock market.” Morris is headlining several events in the next few months where attendees will “hear market predictions from him.” The event’s website includes a video featuring “A Special Message from Dick Morris” in which Morris warns of people preying on “suckers.”

Perhaps he was hired as Retirement Media’s contrarian investor.  In other words, whatever Dick Morris advises you to do, do the contrary.

Meanwhile, a great omen for the president today:

So third term?

The Neocons Double Down On Gaza

As the brutality and slaughter in Gaza shocks the global conscience, there are a couple of options for the current American right. One might be to reconsider their lockstep support for anything Israel does, including its settlements, and perhaps observe that occupying Arab land and attempting to wipe out an insurgency tends not to go well for a Western power (see Iraq, etc.).  The other is to double down on everything, blame Hamas solely for the staggering suffering in Gaza – and call for yet more bombs, yet more shelling and yet more mass killing. Call the latter the Cheney option. As to the possibility that a campaign that would kill thousands more Gazans might spawn even deeper resistance, and ever more radical successors to Hamas, Continetti dismisses it:

Say Islamic Jihad replaced Hamas tomorrow. Would we be able to tell the difference? How would its rhetoric be more genocidal, its propaganda more manipulative, its aims more maximalist, its tactics more barbaric than what Israel experiences now? Would Islamic Jihad have two Palestinian Mickey Mouses exhorting schoolchildren to kill Jews, rather than one? …

Yes, there would be costs to regime change in the Gaza Strip. But the choice is not between a costly policy and a cost-free one. The choice is between the costs of removing a terrorist group from power and the costs of leaving it injured but able to fight another day. To prevent a fourth war, to bolster ties with the Sunni powers, to improve the chances of a two-state solution, to help the Palestinians, above all to secure Israel, the decision is clear. Destroy Hamas. End the war. Free Gaza.

Free Gaza from its own population? Because do you really think that, after what Israel has done to them, Gazans will choose the IDF over Hamas? It’s as brilliant an idea as re-invading Iraq (which many neocons also support). And it’s staggering to me that in order “to improve the chances of a two-state solution”, countless Gazan children have to die but not a single brick should be removed from the settlements in the West Bank. But the classic neocon view that in all fights, the only option is to up the ammo, seems sadly resurgent. Jonathan Tobin piles on:

Those who claim there is only a political solution to the problem fail to understand that in the absence of a military solution it won’t be possible.

Until something happens that will eliminate the Palestinian force that is determined to keep the conflict red-hot and is prepared to sacrifice their own people in order to advance that objective, there is no point to those who criticize Israel for not creating a Palestinian state. Though it has been blockaded by Israel, Egypt, and the international community since the 2007 coup that brought Hamas to power there, Gaza has functioned as an independent state for all intents and purposes since then. Its government’s sole objective has been to fight Israel, pouring its scarce resources into rockets, tunnels, and other military expenses while—despite Hamas’s reputation as a “social welfare organization”—doing virtually nothing to better the lives of its people. So long as it is allowed to stay in power that won’t change and, no matter how many cease-fires or negotiations John Kerry sponsors, peace will never happen.

Let’s note that the level of rocket fire from Hamas was at an all-time low in 2103 and 2014, and came back in force when Netanyahu launched a sweep of all Hamas sympathizers on the West Bank as revenge for a rogue unit that had killed three Israeli teens. The people who are just as responsible for keeping this conflict “red-hot” as Hamas are the Likudniks stealing more Palestinian land on the West Bank every day. In fact, they have a mutual interest in exactly this kind of extremism. Responding to Joe Scarborough’s change of heart, Allahpundit makes the same point:

I can understand being indifferent about which jihadi group runs Gaza or mildly preferring Hamas just because Israel has already collected so much intelligence on them. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. (Netanyahu himself apparently favors that approach.) If you take the “whatever comes next will be worse” logic to its ultimate conclusion, though, you’re forever left defending whichever bunch of degenerates is in charge at the time. Israel can’t oust Hamas because then Al Qaeda might take over; if Al Qaeda takes over, Israel can’t oust them or else ISIS might move in. If ISIS moves in, Israel can’t oust them or else a portal to hell will open in the ground and Hitler and Bin Laden will emerge from the earth to rule Gaza together. And so on.

Maybe, just maybe, Allahpundit will recall that al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq till the US invaded; and that ISIS has a direct line in its existence from that moment of chaos. We helped create Jihadism in Iraq by occupying it. Why one earth would Israel manage to suppress Jihadism in Gaza by the same tactics – except this time, by a permanent occupation?

The costs of never reviewing history is that you make the same mistakes again and again.

Getting Thrown Out Of Court

The authors of Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution have dubbed the Roberts Court the “anti-court Court,” because, as David Cole observes, “At every stage, it has favored rules that make it more difficult to pursue justice in the courts”:

It has imposed higher “pleading” standards on complaints, ensuring that more lawsuits can be dismissed by trial judges at the threshold, before plaintiffs are able to obtain discovery from defendants. It has upheld contract provisions that require consumers and employees to pursue remedies against corporations through arbitration favored by employers rather than in court. It has presumptively barred classwide arbitration, even where that means that some forms of illegal conduct will never be remedied. … The Roberts Court has also made it virtually impossible to bring class actions in federal court against employers based on unwritten discriminatory practices (and what employer these days has a written practice of discrimination?). And last term, it declined to hear a challenge to a secret NSA spying program, on the Catch-22 reasoning that plaintiffs had to show that they were actually under surveillance, a showing they could not make precisely because the program was secret.

Because these decisions involve technical questions of civil and criminal procedure, they do not receive the public attention given to the Court’s highly publicized constitutional cases. But they are far more consequential, because they close off the courts to an almost infinite variety of legal wrongs.

A Poem For Friday

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“A Brief Correspondence Course” by Ron Padgett:

When I close a letter
with “Cordially,” I
blush with shame.
It sounds insincere.
But when a letter
comes to me
with that same closing,
I glow with warmth.
I smile, I think
this person is cordial,
although until
a few moments ago
I had never heard
of him. In fact he is
a wild palooka in a half-
lit office, his
hair crazed with
enterprise, large
rubber mice
in the corridor.

Sincerely,
Ron Padgett

(From Collected Poems © 2013 by Ron Padgett. Used by permission of Coffee House Press. Photo by Doeth Gwraig)

Trophy Children, Ctd

A reader sends the above video:

I’m firmly with those who feel that “trophies for everyone” devalues achievement. It also lessens the drive that comes from a “Just Wait ‘Til Next Year” mentality. But don’t take my word. Tanner and Timmy Lupus can demonstrate.

Another argues that the evidence supports the opposite approach:

We probably should be awarding trophies based on effort, not performance. The well-established psychological research of Carol Dweck and others says that kids will continue to work hard if they believe that hard work pays off, but they will give up easily if they have a fixed theory of ability, meaning they think they are either innately good or bad at something. Kids with an fixed theory of ability give up when they encounter obstacles because they assume that they are just innately bad at that particular task. These mentalities persist into adulthood. This is why we should reward kids for their efforts and praise them for trying hard: it will encourage them and helps build resilience.

That doesn’t mean that showing up is trying and therefore trophy-worthy. But it’s unclear to me why the anti-trophy crowd wants to reinforce awards in a manner that we know is bad for kids’ development.

More readers continue the popular discussion:

I find it odd that many of the parents writing in want to celebrate their kids success by taking away the other kids’ trophies.

My kid is introverted and isn’t super talented, so just getting him to participate is a struggle sometimes. Having some of his teammates get trophies and leaving him out will just discourage him even more. And for what, some life lesson? Give me a break. He’ll learn soon enough that life is hard and unfair. I didn’t sign him up for that purpose; I signed him up so he could get some exercise and develop his social skills. So please leave him and his trophy alone. Taking it away won’t somehow make it easier for your kid to be an Olympian.

Another makes an important point:

There’s a huge difference between giving trophies to everyone on a high-school team and on a team of six-year-olds. For younger children, athletic prowess is difficult to measure. Dribbling a few feet down the soccer field is beyond most of the kids. Most of the goals I’ve seen have been scored by fluke. For very young children, showing up to every practice, participating in the drills and not running off the field crying truly is something that deserves a trophy. There’s plenty of time to introduce them to the Darwinian world of sports when they’re older.

Another sighs, “The whining about giving participation trophies drives me nuts”:

I generally hear it from people who have never coached kids – and sometimes from those who don’t even have kids. I’d like to add a few points to the discussion. First, in my experience, participation trophies are only given out at a very young age. By the time my kids were nine, they had stopped receiving participation trophies for swimming and soccer (their two primary sports). They’ve got plenty of time left to figure out – as if they haven’t already – that most rewards are earned.

Second, as someone who has (briefly) coached youth sports, I can tell you that “thanks for showing up” is a sincere sentiment. In the context of team sports, you need all the kids you can get. No one can field a team of only the superstar eight-year-olds, let alone a whole league. There aren’t that many of them. You need the mediocre (and worse) kids to show up, or little Jimmy superstar is going to be sitting around without a league to play in. In that sense, every kid on the team is valuable. And you want as many of these kids to stick with these sports for as long as you can. The kid who looked like a future superstar at six may have stopped improving (or growing) by 10. Or he’s lost interest. And the kid who sucked at six may be a superstar at 12 or 14 or 16. Trying to weed these kids out early is a terrible idea.

Third, in an age when childhood obesity is an increasing problem, showing up and playing, even if not particularly well, should be encouraged in any way possible. Very young kids frequently need motivation. Parenting young children is all about motivating beneficial behavior. What’s wrong with using a cheap trophy to (ideally) spark an interest in sports? If a trophy (or a ball personalized by the coaching staff, which is an excellent idea some of my kids coaches have also used) keeps these kids coming out to play, it’s well worth it.

Many readers jumped on the last one in the previous post. One of the kinder emails:

What this dad doesn’t get is that a talent show is a show, not a competition, despite what years of American Idol may make people believe.  While the applause is the extrinsic reward for the young artists’ performance (hopefully on top of the intrinsic reward of art for art’s sake), it is your applause that matters, not who got applause louder than yours at curtain call.  Any real performer would feel revulsion at the very suggestion.

And since this is about young people, remember that the teacher had students on stage AND in the audience.  Just artists need to learn how to be good artists, young audience members need to learn how to be good audience members, so I have no qualms about the teacher instructing the kids on applause.

Finally, a dad who is upset not even that his daughter’s applause wasn’t sufficient, but that applause for other acts was too generous and devaluing his daughter’s performance?  And who is teaching his daughter that lesson? Well, I’ve got a trophy for him, and I know exactly where he can put it.  To thunderous applause.